Mobile apps are becoming essential tools for many fast-food chains. Customers can place pickup or delivery orders, accumulate loyalty points and receive promotions with these apps. SimilarWeb recently compared the daily active users on the Android apps of Starbucks(NASDAQ: SBUX), McDonald's(NYSE: MCD), Dunkin' Brands' (NASDAQ: DNKN) and Domino's Pizza(NYSE: DPZ) and found that Starbucks easily led the pack.

That wasn't surprising, since Starbucks launched one of the first fast-food mobile apps in 2009, and mobile orders accounted for 11 percent of the coffee specialist's U.S. transactions last year. Starbucks' app also was the most popular proximity mobile payments platform in America, with 20.7 million users last year, according to eMarketer.

McDonald's arrived much later. It launched its mobile app in 2015, then added mobile ordering and payment features last year. Dunkin' Donuts launched a mobile payments app in 2012, then added mobile orders in 2017 via a partnership with Waze. However, mobile transactions only accounted for 3 percent of Dunkin's total orders last year.

Meanwhile, Domino's Pizza is testing driverless delivery vehicles with Ford, which could be eventually summoned with its mobile app. All these innovations should streamline orders, reduce wait times and help restaurants collect more data for improving their businesses.

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